Push Pull Kiss Repeat
by zephakitara
Summary: She knows she likes him. But she knows she hates him as well. And she can never tell what his feelings are for her. For all she knows, he probably hates her too. CleoxOrphen.


**Push Pull Kiss Repeat**

'She's probably the only woman you would ever appreciate.'

* * *

Cleo carefully dipped her sore, thorn-covered arms into the cool, tranquil lake, her sighs of relief blending with the soft sound of the rippling water and the rhythmic chirping of the crickets.

'Oh that feels so good…'

She closed her eyes, savouring the refreshing feeling of the water as she dipped her arms a little deeper into the lake. She stayed that way for about a minute or two before opening her eyes and stared at her pale arms undulating in the dark water.

Reluctantly, Cleo pulled her arms out of the water to assess them, barely keeping the urge to scratch them raw at bay.

In the pale silver moonlight, Cleo saw how ugly the condition of her arms and hands were. Small black thorns had stuck themselves to them, some buried deep underneath her skin with a few already trickling thin rivers of blood down her arms.

'Curse my luck,' she said with a bitter sigh.

Gingerly, she pulled one out from her palm.

'Oww! Dammit that hurts!' Cleo cried out, her voice startling the birds nesting in the tree not far from where she was nursing her arms at the edge of the lake.

'Why is this_ happening_ to me?' she sobbed, wincing and hissing as she painfully pulled out another thorn. 'This is all that good-for-nothing sorcerer's fault. I wouldn't be covered in these stupid thorns if not because of him,' she fumed.

For the nth time, Cleo Everlasting had run away from camp after yet another inane fight with Orphen, the rogue sorcerer she was travelling with. The fight ignited from the smallest and silliest of things that Cleo couldn't even remember what it was anymore and it ended up with her running away from camp in tears and curses.

In her rage, she had blindly and foolishly ran through the woods without thinking or paying attention to her surroundings. Eventually, she stumbled on a huge tree root and crashed into a small bush of clapperclawers and had gotten their tiny, sharp barbs all over her arms and hands.

'Of all bushes to fall into!' Cleo grumbled. She looked at the thorn she had just pulled out, noticing the angry red tip at its sharp end. She was sure it was not blood. 'Why is the tip red? I thought stupid clapperclawer thorns are black.'

She shrugged with a sigh, casting the thorn into the lake. She had no energy whatsoever to wonder about some barbs.

In between sighs, sobs, hisses and curses, Cleo slowly pulled out the thorns from her skin one by one. It had been more than a couple of hours since she left camp and she wasn't even sure about her current whereabouts, or how to get back to camp.

'Not that I'm going back to that ungrateful charlatan,' she said with genuine contempt as she got another thorn out. She wondered if Majic was looking for her. He must be worried about her.

'At least Majic wouldn't have the heart to let a young lady wonder around alone in a dark forest in the middle of the night,' Cleo said her thoughts out loud. She was feeling sorry for herself now as she stared up at the moon looking so incongruously magnificent while she was in such a pathetic state.

'_God_, I hate this,' she muttered.

Cleo continued to pull out the thorns quietly after that, refusing to think of Orphen which would only fan the fires of her fury. But it was easier said than done.

Since she had started travelling together with Orphen and his apprentice Majic a few years ago, Cleo had, against her own will, found herself attracted to the former Tower of Fang sorcerer. And of course, she eventually fell for him throughout the course of their journey. Not that she was going to admit it to anyone, especially not to Orphen. She couldn't even admit it to herself. It was painful for her to have feelings for the sorcerer who seemed to play her like a ball on an elastic string. She was never sure about his feelings towards her. Sometimes she felt like he probably liked her too, at other times, he treated her like she was a huge nuisance in his existence. There were times, or more like once in a blue moon, when he would genuinely open up to her, pulling her close towards his securely clamped up heart, making her feel like he was accepting her finally, only for him to push her away immediately after that. It drove her crazy.

'Stupid Orphen,' Cleo whispered to the night, throwing another red-tipped thorn into the river with unnecessary strength. 'I hope you drop dead.'

'Sorry to disappoint you, princess, but I'm not going to drop dead anytime soon.'

Cleo whirled around to see Orphen standing right behind her, one hand on his hip, his russet eyes glaring down at her. Even in the pale moonlight, Cleo could see the glint of annoyance in them.

'Oh, it's_ you_. What do you want, Orphen? Came here to mock me?' Cleo spat, turning her attention back to her arms.

She didn't expect for Orphen to show up. In fact, she was waiting for Majic to come for her, like he always did. Most of the time it was always Orphen's kind-hearted apprentice who would come and find her whenever she ran away from camp.

'Go away!' Cleo said rather weakly when the sorcerer didn't answer her. She didn't want to see Orphen's face right now. She was sick of it.

'You fell into a bunch of clapperclawers?' the sorcerer asked, his voice calm.

Even though there was no trace of mockery in his voice whatsoever, Cleo convinced herself that there actually _was _because Orphen was so good at not showing his real feelings. And he would never pass a chance to rile her up.

'It's none of your business,' Cleo said flatly, a little too late in trying to hide her arms from Orphen's view.

'Did you know that some of them are poisonous and they could kill you in a few hours if you got their thorns buried in your flesh?'

Cleo went very still at Orphen's words, but her heartbeat started to race. Her eyes slowly went to the thorn she was holding in between her fingertips, and somehow its red tip seemed to glow ominously.

'Are you kidding me?' she said in a shrill voice, trying not to let her imagination run wild. She wasn't sure if Orphen was lying or telling the truth. She was never sure of anything when it came to him.

'Nope,' Orphen replied curtly.

'Don't mess with me, Orphen!'

'I'm not.'

After a moment of silence, Cleo spoke, but her voice was clearly a little shaky.

'Doesn't matter. I'd rather die than having to look at your ugly face again.'

_Ugly? Yeah, right._

Cleo could hardly look away or think straight whenever she laid eyes on that beautiful face of his, especially when those unreadable, captivating russet eyes regarded her like she was the only thing in the world he was interested in. He did that sometimes. And she was never certain why or what ran through his mind when he did that.

Behind her, Orphen didn't say a thing or even make a sound for a long while.

_Is he even there anymore? Did I truly upset him? _

Cleo didn't dare look around. She wondered if her words this time had really angered him, and he had decided to not have anything to do with her anymore. He probably had whisked himself away back to camp for good, never to see her ever again.

_This is it. This is where my journey with Orphen and Majic ends._

Cleo jerked a little in surprise when Orphen suddenly appeared next to her without a sound, his hands already lightly gripping her wrists, eyes intently examining the state of her arms and hands.

Cleo pulled her arms away from him before she could think, and Orphen's light grips immediately turned into crushing iron vices, staying her arms where they were, unintentionally pushing some of the thorns deeper into her delicate skin in the process.

'Ah!'

Orphen's eyes flickered with sudden awareness at the sound of Cleo's sharp painful cry, realizing that his reflex reactions were actual hurting her. His tight grasps around her wrists quickly loosened and Cleo noticed a rare apologetic look in his eyes as he looked away from her.

'Dammit Cleo, stay still.'

'What? You're the one who startled me! And you're making things worse,' Cleo whined, looking closely at her thorn-covered arms, face horrified. 'I demand an apology.'

Orphen smirked and let out a sound that could have only meant '_Really?_' before tightening his hold on her a little. He ignored her small painful gasp.

'Forgive me, _Highness_,' Orphen hissed an apology in the most insincere way possible.

'I'm afraid your apology is not accepted.'

'Fine by me,' Orphen said without missing a beat.

'Ugh, you're impossible, do you know that?' Cleo snapped, not sure if she should really let Orphen have a look at her arms and examine her wounds. For all she knew, he shouldn't be concerned about her wellbeing.

Orphen proceeded to take off his fingerless leather gloves without a word, revealing rough, callous hands. Cleo could clearly see the big and small scars covering them even in the moonlight, her blue eyes following his hands as they softly reclaimed her wrists. Her skin tingled and she felt the familiar feeling of butterflies in her stomach when Orphen ran his fingers along her arms, carefully avoiding the thorns protruding from her skin.

'Well?' Cleo asked, feeling the need to break the crushing silence, and to get rid of the butterflies in her stomach.

'Well what?'

'These damn _clappercrappers _in my skin–'

'Clapper_clawers_.'

'Ugh, _whatever_! Who the hell cares? I want to know if they're poisonous or not!'

Orphen was quiet for a while, thinking.

'Actually, they are,' Orphen finally said, sounding a little grave.

'What?' Cleo felt her heart drop to her stomach as her shoulders drooped. 'You're lying, right?' she whispered in disbelief. She didn't want to die because of some stupid clapperclawers. She was still too young to die.

Her worried eyes regarded Orphen's moonlit face, and to her annoyance saw a triumphant smirk on his lips that he didn't even try to cover.

'Did you just_ lie _to me?' she hissed, punching Orphen in the shoulder as hard as her sore fist could. She felt her rage bubbling once again when the sorcerer just continued to smirk, holding back laughter.

'You _jerk_! That. Was. Not. _Funny_!' Cleo screamed, punctuating every word with a punch to Orphen's shoulder. 'Do you really want me dead so badly?!'

Orphen easily caught her wrist before she could throw him her last punch.

'I thought you'd rather die than having to look at my ugly face again?'

Cleo stared daggers at him in silence. The man in front of her was infuriating!

'I hate you,' she hissed through clenched teeth.

'Good to know,' Orphen replied nonchalantly as he let go of Cleo's wrist before she could violently tug it away from him.

The blonde girl was about to get up and get away from the loathsome sorcerer when he suddenly started talking again, his hands back on her arms.

'These are common clapperclawers. They're not poisonous,' Orphen said in an uncharacteristic soft voice, as if trying to calm her down and not make her worry, gently running his fingers down Cleo's arms which were starting to get covered in red rashes.

Cleo stared at him, wondering why he was being like this with her. She hated it every time he did this; acting kind and thoughtful and caring towards her when she least expected it. It was always like this between them. Whenever she tried to push him away to save her feelings from being hurt, he would pull her in with his rare kindness. She needed to hate him right now, to stay mad at him but it was impossible to do that when he was being nice and gentle to her like this. He was almost tender.

'A-are you sure? How do you know?' Cleo asked uncertainly, trying to ignore what his caressing fingers were making her feel.

'When I was his student, Childman used to throw me into clapperclawer bushes as punishment whenever I refused to follow his orders,' Orphen explained as he pulled out the remaining thorns carefully. To Cleo's amazement, she didn't even feel an ounce of pain when he pulled them out.

'He'd thrown me enough time into these little bastards for me to master the skill of pulling these sick barbs out without causing any pain.'

'Really? Childman would do that?' Cleo asked, a little surprised. She had always thought Childman was a kind and caring teacher to Orphen.

'He wasn't as nice as you think,' Orphen replied, giving his full attention to Cleo's arms.

'I guess he only threw you into the common clapperclawers? Because you're obviously still alive,' Cleo commented.

'He'd only throw me into the common ones when the poisonous clapperclawers were nowhere to be found, and it was very rare for him to not find poisonous clapperclawers nearby. I'd be sick for days because of the damn poison, and my magic at that time was only powerful enough to keep me from dying. But thanks to Childman, I'm now almost immune to these clapperclawer poison.'

'Really? So you won't die from these devils?'

'Most probably not, but I would still get sick for a little while,' Orphen said as he worked swiftly pulling the thorns out of Cleo's arms.

Cleo watched him quietly, the moon's silver rays glancing off his messy dark hair that was held back slightly from his face by the red bandanna he always had wrapped around his forehead.

'Did you treat your wounds yourself back then? Did Childman not help you?' Cleo asked, trying to push away the familiar feeling of affection that was slowly dawning on her. 'I mean, there must've been thousands of thorns stuck to your body, right?'

Orphen let out a bark of cynical laughter, startling Cleo for a second.

'I guess that's a no then,' she concluded.

'It was Azalie,' Orphen said after a while.

'Huh?'

'The one who would treat me. It was Azalie,' Orphen said again, his eyes had a soft look that Cleo couldn't help noticing. 'Childman would warn her not to help treat me, but she didn't care.'

'Oh.'

That was all Cleo could let out.

Whenever the name Azalie cropped up, her body would tense. Azalie had always been a touchy subject for her to talk about. In the first place, she didn't know the kind, strong but gentle Azalie that Orphen knew when he was a boy. She only knew Azalie as the destructive woman-turned-dragon who was nothing but a selfish and manipulative creature. She could never see or understand why Orphen had gone so far as to almost getting himself killed to save the crazy woman.

'Azalie, huh. She's probably the only woman you would ever appreciate.'

Her words were followed by an uncomfortable silence.

Cleo fidgeted as Orphen momentarily stopped what he was doing before he started to move his hands again, pretending like she hadn't said anything. Cleo didn't know why she had said that out loud. The moment Orphen had said the name Azalie, Cleo could feel that the conversation would turn awkward. She wasn't sure, but Cleo had a feeling that Orphen knew that talking about Azalie would make her uncomfortable, and he had brought her up just to make her feel that way.

Cleo stayed quiet as Orphen pulled the last of the thorns out of her skin, trying not to think at all because if she did, she might want to run away from Orphen again. After he had made sure there wasn't a single thorn left buried in Cleo's skin, Orphen scooped the cool water from the lake with his hands and held it in front of him. He then closed his eyes and said a spell in a low voice.

'I guide thee, blood of ice.'

Cleo felt the usual electric charge in the air whenever Orphen or Majic cast a spell. It never failed at making the small hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

The sorcerer let the water in his hands trickle slowly onto one of Cleo's arms and then gently rubbed it with his hand from her elbow to the very tips of her fingers. Again, Cleo felt butterflies in her stomach when Orphen interlaced his long, bony fingers with her dainty ones to make sure every part of her arm and hand was covered with the water. He then scooped another handful of water, intoned the same spell and repeated what he did to Cleo's other arm.

'What was that spell for?' Cleo asked quietly when Orphen was done treating her arms, but his hands were still gently caressing her fingers as if he was applying ointment.

Orphen didn't answer but he kept his head down with his hands still on Cleo's, before looking up at her.

His face came up so close to hers, Cleo almost pulled back in surprise. But she didn't. She had the strongest of urges to close her eyes and lean in, and kiss him. But she didn't do that either. She only sat still, watching him. She noticed Orphen's eyes lingering on her lips, which were only a whisper away from his, and for a second she thought he was going to kiss her when she felt him lean in. But he didn't.

Orphen looked away, pulled his hands off her and got up, leaving Cleo stunned when she felt his lips feather-brushed her jaw.

'It was just a simple spell to keep the itch away,' Orphen said the answer to Cleo's question that she had completely forgotten. 'It'll last only for a few hours, though.'

Cleo got herself together again, trying not to think of what had just happened. Or what might have happened.

'What? Why? Is your magic not powerful enough?' she retorted, trying her best to act normal, like nothing happened. Like they didn't almost kissed.

'It'll need more than a spell to treat something like that. You need herbs to get that rash to calm down,' Orphen said, sounding a little stiff as he regarded the redness on Cleo's arms and hands that could clearly be seen even in the pale moonlight.

Without saying a thing, he started to walk away.

'Orphen?' Cleo called out as she watched his back disappear into the darkness.

'We'll be leaving for Taflem in the morning, so if you're still interested in joining me and Majic, make sure you find your way back to camp before then.'

'What? Orphen, wait!'

'I won't wait for you, Your Highness,' Orphen's voice blossomed from the darkness.

'Dammit Orphen,' Cleo muttered underneath her breath as she got up and ran after the sorcerer. There was no way she'd stay there alone in the forest tonight.

And it seemed it was not the end of her journey with the rogue sorcerer and his apprentice after all.


End file.
